Welcome back CapFriendlies! Every morning one of the things I like to do while I wait for my coffee to brew/ignore work emails for another 15 minutes, is to look at the NHL standings. It sounds simple, but I really do feel like checking in on where teams sit gives you an excellent pulse on the league and that's anywhere from casual fans or if you're like me in more than one fantasy league, a points pool, and nightly DFS loser. The other morning, I go to check the standings and look who we have in the WC2 spot, the Washington Capitals. Scroll down a ways…and a ways more, and there's the Pittsburgh Penguins outside looking in. Besides being two clubs I don't like to stack in DFS, these two clubs have always been linked both by the Metro division and of course the rivalry between Alex Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby.

There's been so many great battles between these two teams, with last season being the first time in playoffs we didn't see either since 2005. That's just a guess by the way on the year, but you get the idea, it's been a long time. So how from a cap perspective did these clubs get to this spot right here and which might be in a better spot moving forward? I'm not saying that these are two clubs going in complete opposite directions, but there are paths it looks like for now in March of 2024, that each organization is heading down.

The Capitals  

Every season we always see one or two teams that are, "how the heck did they make it into playoffs" teams and this season I had two in the Predators and the Capitals…believe me, though I had my misses. Thanks Ottawa. The reason for the Capitals though prior to the season as a club that could make playoffs though, is different than what we're seeing on the ice. My thought was that this club had the vets to make a run here, healthy Darcy Kuemper in net helped along with an all-in season from their over 33-year-old players like T.J. Oshie, John Carlson, offseason acquisition Max Pacioretty, Nicklas Backstrom, Evegny Kuznetsov, and of course Alex Ovechkin. What's happened though is the opposite as Ovi just scored his 20^th goal of the season in mid-March, Oshie is back on his play one, sit three, rotation with games, Carlson on the power play has been a non-factor at points during this season, Backstrom is on LTIR, and Kuznetsov now plays for Carolina. Instead, it's their younger players who have carried this club to where they are now, and that's just why I like where this team could be set up for moving forward.

Weird would be one way to put this season for the Capitals as at times early in the season this club was differing to Tom Wilson on the power play, not Ovechkin, and personally I did not have Dylan Strome as the Capitals leading scorer on my 2024 NHL regular season BINGO card, and this is a player that has been on the third line at points this season, yet here we are. Why I think this club is in a good spot moving forward is I like some of their young pieces along with where this team could sit cap-wise in as little as one season. Two pieces in particular for me are Connor McMichael, who is a player that I've always been a fan of, and Hendrix Lapierre, who has a great story behind him to this point. Both of them are on their ELC's and both of them could be contributing on a playoff team in four weeks if this club can hold on to the spot, they're in right now. I know I didn't mention Aliaksei Protas here as a very good player to have moving forward as just personally, I need to see more. There's a lot of careless offsides plays with him or forcing the puck that I just want to see improve, but I'm not the one that needs to be convinced here as the Caps have seen what they needed to see. Enough to warrant an a five-year $16.8M dollar contract extension that will go into effect this offseason.

So, there are some good, young pieces here and the Caps could use that and flip this roster here as soon as next season. If Nicklas Backstrom plays at all next season he does take up $9.2M against the salary cap but I'd almost be willing to bet here that we see him back on LTIR. You're on the last year of TJ Oshie's current deal, and my guess here is he either becomes a 35+ contract somewhere else, or if it's on the Capitals it's a low AAV and we see him on LTIR frequently going into his age-38 season. Say those two things happen, that's close to $15M shed right there, moving into 2025-2026. This is also club that has kept all of their first-round picks for the next three seasons, with next year's draft collecting three third rounders.

I have been down on this club so much at times over this season, but outside looking in, I don't think they're in a bad spot moving forward here. If anything, this is a club in a year we see bring in another goaltender to help share the load with Darcy Kuemper, or they have Hunter Shepard in house who might be able to fill that role. What else I really like here is there's no whale of a contract that I am just praying I can deal or waiting to expire. The Dylan Strome five-year $25M looks like it's going to age excellent, and even their other larger multi-year deal with Tom Wilson at five-years by $31 isn't something I'd really regret what he can bring to this club.

The Penguins

Anyone else remember getting the Hockey News in the mail with a yet-to-be-drafted Sidney Crosby on the cover during the lockout year? We've come a way since then. Three Cups including one back-to-back – which I wanted to say was impossible during the salary cap era – to go along with so many really talented Penguins clubs and it was for the most part centered around Crosby and Evgeni Malkin on pretty team-friendly deals along with Marc-Andre Fleury during their run.

This offseason instead of maybe trying to re-tool the bottom six, or even maybe trying a rebuild on the fly, this team decided to double-down? It made no sense then and it makes no sense now. Off the bat the Pens now have a $10M player on the blueline with 33-year-old Erik Karlsson. I guess for fantasy, sure, good player to have but don't understand what this did to help this club right now. They also have four more seasons of Kris Letang at $6.1M, which if it's an older defenseman the last year of that deal is going to either be spent on LTIR, I've just seen that more times than not (in Chicago we call it Seabrooking).

In a season or two there will be some sort of Crosby extension; this won't be like Tampa and Stamkos right now, I can almost guarantee that. But for this all to work and turn around, the Pens likely wouldn't bring back Evgeni Malkin when his contract expires so you're looking at Bryan Rust and Rickard Rakell, each around $5M a season until 2027-28. I wouldn't be surprised if one of them is dealt next deadline but that's just where I think this Pens club should try and get to. They don't have their first rounder this year with the Karlsson deal and there's really no prospects that jump off the page at you or even any young players that you feel confident about moving forward. For right now it's a very good Crosby season, and I'd argue it could be a good Tristan Jarry season, but he has just been left out to dry more times than not when I watch this club.

*Salary Cap data from CapFriendly.com

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